


Make It Through

by cascading



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Cages, Demon Blood, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Rescue, Shock Collars, Slavery, Spanking, Teen Winchesters, Torture, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:30:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cascading/pseuds/cascading
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He ducks into the bedroom and eases the door shut behind him, turning the flimsy lock and running for the window. Before he can get there, though, the door bursts off its hinges and falls flat on the floor.</p>
<p>“Don’t wanna try that, Sammy boy,” the man says. His eyes flash yellow.</p>
<p>Sam swallows hard. He’s unarmed, outmatched. He doesn’t know what this thing is or how to fight it. So he does what he knows to do.</p>
<p>“My name’s Sam,” he says. Spits it out with as much force as the guy used to throw him across two rooms.</p>
<p>(The rape/noncon in this fic is attempted only, but I've added the warning to be on the safe side.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make It Through

**Author's Note:**

> de-anoned from [this post](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/92073.html?thread=36099497#t36099497) on the spn kink meme.

He wakes up in a closet.

It’s dark, but not totally dark; there’s light leaking through under the door. Sam moves his arms and legs cautiously. The _where am I and why_ game is pretty familiar by now, even though it still gets his heart going.

His legs aren’t bound. His wrists have some sort of cuffs around them, but they aren’t linked together. There’s duct tape over his mouth and something around on his neck. Nothing worse than soreness as far as injuries go, but he’s still fighting grogginess.

Sedated, his brain finally supplies. You got sedated.

Sam sits up, then. Peels off the duct tape, trying not to wince as it pulls at the skin around his lips. Touches the thing around his neck—metal, matching the cuffs, still not attached to anything. Then he squints at the stuff in the closet, looking for anything he can use as a weapon. There’s a big umbrella with a metal tip in the corner. It’s good enough, Sam decides. Time to check the door.

It’s not locked.          

Nothing bracing it, either, and Sam almost laughs. Something’s going on, that’s for sure from the sedative and the gag, but whoever this is has some serious gaps in their planning. Sure, Sam’s fifteen and still kinda small for his age. Doesn’t mean people need to go around assuming he can’t get out of a closet with the use of both hands.

He listens for a minute. No footsteps. No voices. So he brings up the umbrella to a defensive position and cracks open the door, slipping out into a nice, upper-middle-class civilian kitchen with an island in the middle and morning light streaming in.

He listens again. Still nothing.

So Sam starts tiptoeing through the house, looking for the door or even a floor-level window. He’s unnerved, now. He doesn’t remember getting sedated. Last thing he remembers it was evening in some motel in Mullen, Nebraska, and Dad was sending Dean out to buy beer while Sam did biology homework. Fungi. Haploid and diploid phases. At least he still remembers that.

He gets into the living room and finds an accessible window. Watching his back as best he can, he crosses over to it and starts fumbling with the latch. It won’t turn, and there are two panes plus a screen. Sam really doubts he can break the thing with his umbrella.

He casts an eye across the room because the door’s got to be nearby, and that’s when he hears the footsteps. Crap, he thinks, and he scrambles behind the couch. His breathing sounds loud in his ears, his chest heaving.

The footsteps come into the room. Sam tries to breathe quieter.

“Now Sammy,” comes a voice. It’s a little singsong, a little harsh. Taunting. Familiar, although Sam can’t place it. “Come out come out wherever you are. This game’s not gonna last.”

Sam tightens his grip on the umbrella. Damn it, he should have stopped in the kitchen to look for a knife. And salt. Definitely salt.

“Course I could just do a little spell,” whoever it is goes on. “But while you’re playing, kid, I’m playing. Believe me, I’m having more fun than you are.”

Sam tries to assess from the sounds. As far as he can tell, the person’s right between him and the door to what looks like the foyer, which is where he wants to go. And there are no more footsteps.

It’s a stupid plan, really, but he doesn’t have much choice. He gets the umbrella ready to thrust and swings out from cover, hoping to barrel past and find a way out.

For a second, he thinks it’s gonna work. The man in the middle of the room steps aside. But suddenly Sam’s stomach is turning and the world is turning and he’s lost his feet—he’s flying, he’s getting thrown, and he’s landing with a crash all the way back against the island in the kitchen. He can’t see for a second, even though his eyes are definitely open. It just hurts that bad, the crack of the wood against his spine, the snap of his head. Sam gasps for air.

When his head clears, he hears laughter. It’s creepy as hell, and more than creepy enough to drive him to his feet again, backpedaling out the other side of the kitchen into a hallway.

He checks each door, fast as he can. Bathroom. Closet. Closet. Stairs. Bedroom.

He doesn’t want to take the stairs, so he ducks into the bedroom and eases the door shut behind him, turning the flimsy lock and running for the window. Before he can get there, though, the door bursts off its hinges and falls flat on the floor.

“Don’t wanna try that, Sammy boy,” the man says. His eyes flash yellow.

Sam swallows hard. He’s unarmed, outmatched. He doesn’t know what this thing is or how to fight it. So he does what he knows to do.

“My name’s Sam,” he says. Spits it out with as much force as the guy used to throw him across two rooms.

“Yes it is,” says yellow-eyes. “Sammy Sammy Sam. And trust me, Sam, you don’t want to try that.”

“Oh yeah?” says Sam. He turns his back defiantly and reaches for the window latch.

“Oh yeah,” says yellow-eyes.

And then there’s pain, white searing pain from the metal around his neck and wrists. The same pain he gets in his dreams, except real now, shuddering through him.

Sam feels himself buckling. He catches himself on the window with a shaking shoulder and a clenched fist, still trying to work the latch with his other hand.

“Uh-uh,” says yellow-eyes, chiding.

For a second the pain stops and Sam breathes but then the collar and cuffs grow hot, unbearably burning hot. Sam drops his hand from the latch like a kid caught touching the stove.

“Better,” says yellow-eyes. It fades. Sam feels sick.

He’s not getting out. Not easy, anyway.

“Okay,” he says, finally turning back. “So who are you?”

“Name’s Azazel,” yellow-eyes says. He sticks out his hand with a false-friendly smile.

Sam doesn’t take it. “Why the hell do you want me?” he asks. “Are you—are you trying to get to my Dad? Cause he won’t bargain. He’ll just kill you.”

The yellow eyes widen at that, pleasure all over Azazel’s face, and Sam’s scared now, really damn scared. “Oh, _kiddo_ ,” Azazel says, “that is really what you think about your Daddy, huh? No bargains with the big bad? Cause I’ve got news for you, Sam. He already made one.”

_What?_ Sam thinks, and then, _yeah right_. And he tries really hard to think the second thing more. Dad won’t even make deals with him about cassette tapes and diner food. There’s no way he’d go bargaining with this creeper.

When Sam looks up again, Azazel’s leaning way too close. He whispers in Sam’s ear. “That’s right. Daddy made a bargain over you.”

And Sam’s ashamed of himself, but that makes him relax, a little. As long as Dad’s not trading Dean (and he wouldn’t, Dean’s the good son, Dad loves Dean), a bargain’s a good thing, right? It means he’ll get out of here. And Dad wouldn’t make any trades that were stupid or would get people killed.

But Azazel’s still got his mouth against Sam’s ear.

“Traded you off to me,” he whispers. “Couple months’ worth of cash and a few secrets was all it took to make you mine.”

Sam goes rigid. Then he whirls into action, stomping on Azazel’s foot and kicking him in the knee. Azazel staggers, and Sam makes a run for the bedroom door.

When he crosses into the hallway, the collar and cuffs burst into pain again. He fights it, fights for clarity, keeps running. But it radiates up and down his spinal cord, throbbing at the base of his skull, and he can’t keep his balance anymore. He crumples to the floor in the living room, just ten feet from the door in the foyer.

Azazel’s close behind him, pulling him up. Sam forces back tears and tries to twist away, but he can’t.

They look each other in the eye.

“ _Christo_ ,” Sam says.

Azazel flinches back and pulls a face, like Sam just threw a bug at him. Then he laughs again. “Clever, clever, clever. That’s why I wanted you, you know.”

“Demons lie,” Sam says.

“Well yeah,” Azazel singsongs. “But sometimes, kid, the truth just hurts.”

Sam presses his lips together. It isn’t true, it can’t be, but for now he’s got to act like it is. He’s got to act like Dad won’t rescue him. He’s got to figure out how to make it on his own.

“So—so what’s this for?” he asks. “I’m like, your slave, or something? What do I do, the housework?” He never figured demons lived anywhere long-term, but maybe they do. Maybe they just like bossing people around.

“Oh, Sammy,” Azazel says again. He squeezes Sam’s shoulders gently, but Sam flinches anyway. “Housework? Naw. I got way bigger plans for you.”

\----

The plans, apparently, start with going down the stairs into the basement. Sam balks really hard at that, but in the end he decides it’s not worth the collar and cuffs lighting up again. He goes down first like Azazel tells him to, into the darkness. At the bottom of the stairs there’s finally a light switch, and as it flickers on Sam realizes that the basement is as big as the whole house. Maybe bigger. There’s a whole area still dark behind them, but what he can see is full of weapons, targets, and exercise equipment.

“What’s your mile time?” Azazel asks him.

“Uh,” says Sam. If he doesn’t know what this is for, he doesn’t want to say. “I don’t know.”

Azazel doesn’t falter, though. “Then you’ll just have to beat mine,” he says, and points to a treadmill. “Four minutes nine seconds.”

Sam blanches. He’s a little above six lately, which even Dad hasn’t been too unsatisfied with. He can’t get that down by two minutes. But admitting that he lied—Sam doesn’t know how dangerous that would be, and he doesn’t want to risk it.

“That’s ridiculous,” he says. “You aren’t even human.”

“Human record is under four,” Azazel points out.

“Yeah, humans who are _professional runners_ ,” Sam points out in return. “Why do you care, anyway?”

“So many questions, Sammy.” Azazel shakes his head. “But you gotta be strong for me. For the plan. Strong and clever and—yeah, angry. Just like that.”

“I’m not part of your damn plan,” Sam spits. “I won’t do it. I won’t run.”

“Up to you,” says Azazel. He disappears into the dark portion of the basement, leaving Sam bewildered. Before he can recover and dart for the stairs, however, Azazel is back, and he’s got something in his hands.

“What—” Sam starts.

“Like I was saying,” says Azazel. “Up to you. But for every ten seconds you take over four-oh-nine to run that mile, you get a taste of this.”

He holds it up: a coiled whip, long and thick and ugly. Sam, frozen, does the math in his head. Even at his fastest he’d probably get twelve. And if he holds out, well. There’s no telling.

“Better start that treadmill,” Azazel says. “Time’s ticking.”

Sam stumbles over himself. The buttons are way too complicated and he wastes time on them before just jamming some down that make it go. There’s a distance tracker on the machine, and a timer. He doesn’t want to look at them but he does, over and over, running the math, running himself ragged. He’s in pain from slamming into the island earlier but he drives himself through it. It’ll only get worse if he doesn’t.

It gets worse. Azazel starts standing over him, watching the tracker and making soft sounds of disapproval. Sam gets nervous and stumbles and can’t breathe right. He’s scared. He’s so scared. He just wants to get out. He wants Dad to burst through that door, exorcise the demon, and say _it’s okay Sam, I’d never sell you_. Wants Dean pulling him off the treadmill and looking for bruises and breaking the collar from his neck.

Someone pulls him off the treadmill, but it’s Azazel. Sam looks up and sees he’s hit a mile. Six minutes thirty-one seconds, not even his best.

He swallows hard. This is gonna hurt. And it’s gonna leave damage, too, not like the magic demon collar. He’ll have to keep dealing with it afterwards.

“Tsk, tsk.” Azazel tips his chin up. “Gonna have to work on that, aren’t we?”

Sam bites his lip. The silence hangs heavy.

“Here’s where you say _yes sir_ ,” Azazel tells him conspiratorially.

Sam swallows again. “Yes sir.”

Azazel keeps hold on the back of his neck, pushing him towards the dark section of the basement. Another light comes on. Sam gets a glimpse of a table, a cage, and some chains, and then he shuts his eyes.

Azazel chuckles. “First time, huh? I’ll let you lie down, how about that. Save all the pulling on those pretty shoulders for another day. But the clothes gotta come off, kid.”

“No,” says Sam. “No way.” He folds his arms around himself.

“You do it or I do,” Azazel says. “You asking for my hands on you? That what you want?”

“No!” Sam jerks away from the hand on the back of his neck, which has started to play with his hair a little. “I—fine. I’ll do it.”

He doesn’t have anything to bargain with, so he pulls off his shoes and then starts pulling off his jacket and shirts. His fingers fumble with the button on his jeans, but he thinks about Azazel’s hand there instead and hurries. When he’s standing there in his boxers, he folds his arms again and looks up, waiting.

“You gonna finish that job?” Azazel asks, eyeing his underwear.

Sam’s mouth goes dry. But he really doesn’t want it finished for him, so he strips off the boxers and then quickly lays face down on the table, because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do and at least that way he doesn’t feel totally exposed. Vulnerable, definitely, but a little less exposed.

Azazel circles him, pulling out his arms and legs one by one to fasten him spread-eagle with waiting chains. Sam can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. It’s just gonna hurt, he tells himself. Stuff hurts all the time. He can deal; he won’t yell; he won’t beg—

And then there’s a hand on his ass. He gasps, trying to jerk away.

“Geez, Dad. You picked up a jumpy one.”

It’s a girl’s voice. And she sounds familiar, too. Except if Azazel sounds familiar in an eerie way, like something out of a dream, this girl sounds like Sam talks to her every day.

The hand comes off Sam’s ass as Azazel walks around the table to greet her. “Hey there, Meggie.”

“Meg?” Sam asks. He cranes his neck to see the girl who’s joined them in the basement. She’s familiar, all right. He eats lunch with her at Mullen High. “You’re—you’re a demon?”

“Been tracking you ever since you moved to Mullen,” Meg tells him.

Sam’s head spins. “Why?”

“Following my daddy’s orders,” she says. “Just like you do. Oh, I forgot. Like you used to.” Her hand moves back towards him. “Till he sold you.”

“Go to hell,” says Sam.

“Oh, now, you’re no fun.” Meg turns her back on him, goes back to Azazel. “What are you doing with him all tied up so pretty? Gonna share?”

Azazel kisses her on the top of the head. “Always.”

Sam thinks he might throw up. Because Azazel was bad enough, talking about stripping Sam down himself, but Meg sounds like she wants nothing more than to touch him. And it sucks but he finds himself hiding his face and praying that please, please, they’d just whip him and let him get dressed again.

“This is kinda big for a little boy,” Meg is saying. “Let’s warm him up before we do the whip.”

“You want a belt first?” Azazel asks.

“Mm,” says Meg. “Yeah.”

Sam does his best to get himself back under control. He can take a belt licking, he knows that. He’s never had one from a demon, but Dad can sure deal them out. He’s pretty certain it’ll make the whip worse, not better, but as long as it’s just pain—

Azazel’s close by his ear again. “Okay Sammy,” he says, “you know how many you’re getting with that whip?”

Sam thinks back. He was two minutes and twenty-two seconds over, that’s a hundred and forty-two seconds at one lash for every ten... “Fourteen?”

“That’d be it, mathematically. But we’ll call it an even fifteen, how’s that? I like rounding.”

“Yes sir,” says Sam, because there isn’t anything else to say.

Azazel starts taking his belt off. “And you know how many you’re getting with this?”

“No sir,” says Sam.

“Me neither,” Azazel says. “That’s up to Meg. But she likes to see pretty boys cry.”

\----

All he has to do, Sam tells himself as he hears the first crack, feels the sting, is pretend it’s Dad swinging the belt. No demons, no bargain, no slavery. Just him slacking on training, or talking back, and Dad using a firm hand to put him back into line.

The blows are hot against his bare skin. After two or three, the pain is already sinking deep. Meg hits harder than Dad, but the worst part of Dad’s lickings is always the pacing, anyway. So far Meg seems like more of an even-rhythm person. That makes it easier.

She starts up near his hips, laying the leather over every inch of skin. Sam keeps his bottom lip between his teeth and breathes, finding the intervals. He manages all right until two land on top of each other. He can’t help the sharp breath that comes through his teeth then—Meg’s found his sit spot.

She laughs a little behind him and he wrenches his attention away from her. This isn’t Meg. He isn’t captured. It’s just him and Dad and the belt, and he can be as angry as he wants, because it’ll be over soon no matter what. Dad can get out his pent-up frustration; Sam can pay for being a bad son. They’ll be square.

Meg starts on his thighs. The belt’s pounding down now, heavy and slow; his legs quiver under the force of it but he doesn’t make any noise. He imagines the tightness around his wrists is Dean’s hands, not chains. Shuts his eyes to picture Dean’s face, earnest and drawn. ( _Come on, Sammy, don’t be a wuss. This ain’t new. Breathe, dude. Come on._ )

Still, it’s all starting to build. His ass and thighs are burning now and he’s finding it harder not to squirm; when Meg takes a moment to run her cool hand over his skin, he flinches from that too.

“Had enough yet, Sam?” she asks.

He closes his eyes and keeps his silence. But then the collar spikes pain through him.

“I asked you a question,” Meg says, punctuating her words with the steady slap of the belt.

Sam bucks against the combination of the belt and the collar, letting out a strained cry. Meg keeps hitting. The collar sends burst after burst, and he shakes with it.

“Had enough?” she repeats.

“Yes,” Sam chokes out. “Please, please.”

The collar shuts off. He gasps for air but the belt doesn’t let up, still raining down on his sore ass.

“Please what?” He can hear her smile.

“Please—” He hesitates. “Please whip me now. I’m ready, I promise.”

Azazel steps closer then, for the first time since Meg started with the belt. Looks Sam over. “Whatcha say, Meggo?”

“Mm,” says Meg. “I think he needs to beg a little more.”

Sam swallows. He can’t pretend Dad and Dean are here, if he’s supposed to beg. Dad hates begging. Always said that if either of them tried it, he’d beat it right out of them. But this is different. This is demons.

The belt starts up again, but this time Meg leaves pauses. Sam swallows his pride for the sake of self-preservation and says what’s expected ( _please Meg, don’t spank me anymore; please whip me now; I’ll be good, please_.) She and Azazel make little approving noises and she tells him to count the last six.

They’re hard ones, hard and horrible, but he grits out a _thank you_ for every blow and lies there shaking afterwards. The worst part’s still coming, he knows that, but at least it should be quick.

And it is. Azazel takes the whip himself and drives Sam through a blaze of rapid-fire pain that leaves him sobbing and bleeding and not-quite-coherent. The whip is fire; it’s razor-edged knives. It’s too much for words and he’s too weak to take it like he should.

At the end, he slumps on the table. He’s not out, exactly, but he’s close, and they leave him alone.

\----

It’s only when he wakes up curled on the floor, still naked, that Sam realizes he did black out after all. He cracks one eye open, wary of drawing attention. Bars surround him, and through them he can see two pairs of feet.

He lies very still. His body is shouting at him about a complicated mix of awful sensations he doesn’t have the energy to decipher, but he knows better than to move. Dad’s training taught him that, at least. Even if it never did teach him how to get away from demons. He knows there are exorcisms, but on the rare occasions that they encountered a demon, Dad handled those. Sam hates himself for never asking Bobby or Pastor Jim to teach him one. Hunting sucks, but being trapped here sucks more.

Azazel and Meg are talking in some language he doesn’t know. He lies there for a long time, praying they won’t notice him. Eventually they go upstairs, and he lets himself turn in hopes of easing the pain a little. But moving stretches his beaten muscles, breaks open cuts on his back. Sam can’t bear it. He slumps against the floor and cries again, trying to tell himself it’s a good thing no one’s there to hear him. Dean would still be going strong. But Sam’s too weak, and Dad would hate him even more for breaking this way.

\----

It’s only when he hears footsteps on the stairs again that some hope surges back into him, mingling with the dread. He’s been thinking all this time about Dad and Dean coming to rescue him, and he knows that won’t happen, knows Dad won’t come. Demons lie, but Sam can’t fight it any longer: he feels the truth of it in his gut. Dad’s given him up. Sold him, traded him, let him get captured so he could finish a hunt, doesn’t matter. Point is, Dad won’t come.

But Dean might.

Cause Dean won’t buy any of those stories. Sure, he spouts that crap about following Dad’s orders, but Dad’s first word to Dean has always been “ _watch out for Sam_.” And sometimes Dean wants to hunt and sometimes he doesn’t, sometimes he wants to train and sometimes he doesn’t, but Sam knows in his core that Dean wants to keep him safe. All the time. Not just when Dad says.

Dean’s got to come. If there’s a way in hell this place can be tracked, Dean’s going to come.

The footsteps on the stairs aren’t Dean, of course. They’re Meg and Azazel. But Sam feels a little stronger.

“Rise and shine, Sammy!” calls Azazel. He’s got a bottle of water and a granola bar; Meg has the key to the padlock on the cage. Sam’s stomach growls.

“Aw,” says Meg. “Pretty boy wants his breakfast.”

Sam blushes scarlet. He’s really hungry, but mostly he wants her to stop looking at him like that while he’s undressed. “Uh,” he ventures. “Sure. But I want my clothes, mostly.”

“We’ll see,” Meg says. “Knees.”

She waves the key. Sam hesitates, because just turning over last night was a major ordeal, but Azazel gives his collar a warning buzz and he remembers it can get worse. So he grits his teeth and, bracing himself on his hands, pushes up to a kneeling position. He uses his hands to cover himself—Meg’s already seen it all, but that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with her staring.

The collar goes off.

Biting back whimpers, frantic to make it stop, he adjusts his position. Head down? Head up? Finally he clasps his hands behind his back.

“There,” Meg praises. “Look at you, baby.”

Sam’s face burns. He hates her. He wants her to die. “Can I have my clothes?”

“If you earn ’em.” Meg’s leaning in towards the bars now, fiddling with the key.

“How?” Sam asks.

“Oh,” says Meg. “You know.”

“No,” says Sam.

She pouts at him for a moment, then shakes her head. “Fine. We’ll see how long you hold out. Your turn, Daddy.”

Azazel’s glance makes Sam uneasy, too. He hopes it’s only Meg who cares about him still being naked, but doubts are worming into his head. As Azazel takes the key from Meg and unlocks Sam’s cage, Sam’s arms shake with the effort of leaving them behind his back. He wants to cover himself so bad.

“I got something for you,” Azazel says, as he swings the barred door away. He shows off the water and energy bar.

Sam catches himself, thinks before reaching out. “What do I gotta do?”

“Nothing new.” Azazel’s voice oozes reassurance, so much that it’s mocking. “You just gotta run that mile for me. You make it in four-oh-nine, this is all yours. In fact, I’ll go easy on you. Make it in five and I’ll still give you the water.”

His back is still throbbing and his legs don’t want to support him even to kneel. Sam grits his teeth. “What happens if I don’t?”

“Don’t make it in time? We’ll figure that out. If you don’t run at all, well.” His hand reaches out towards Sam’s neck. “That collar gets creative, Sammy. Never tires out, either.”

Sam swallows. “Okay,” he says, and he crawls out of the cage.

It sends a dizzying wave of pain through him, but he manages. Next step is to stand up, so he reaches out a hand, bracing himself on the top of the cage and pulling himself up. His knees are wobbly and his stiff muscles reluctant to straighten.

But he gets there. Draws himself to his full height. And then he stops bracing himself and takes a careful step.

Gray spots appear at the edges of his vision, but he keeps going. Two steps. Three. The pain doesn’t let up but he gets a little stronger, even though he still steadies himself on the stairwell as he passes it. He gets all the way over to the treadmill before he slumps, breathing hard. Then he takes a moment to breathe.

All he’s gotta do is try.

He hits the buttons on the treadmill so it’ll start, then climbs on unsteadily. Once he gets his feet under him, he tries for a decent pace, but he knows he can’t keep that up for a mile. Doesn’t even know if he can _walk_ a mile like this, not without sitting down or passing out.

All he’s gotta do is last.

It’s awful. It’s the worst. He can’t breathe right and his legs cramp; he can barely lift them. He’s still naked, shivering and sweating all at once. He wants to lay down and die.

But all he’s gotta do is make it through until Dean finds him.

\----

He doesn’t make it. Somewhere past half a mile, everything blurs. He stumbles over and over, keeps pulling himself back up. His breathing is ragged and shallow.

When he falls, the treadmill burns his bare skin. His hands, his knees. He cries out a little and rolls onto the floor, fumbling for something he can use to pull himself back up. He’s gotta make it, gotta keep them off his back—

The sound of the treadmill stops and Sam feels someone standing over him. He slumps to the floor, an unwilling sob hitching in his throat.

“I can make you feel better.”

It’s Meg. She’s petting his hair and he lets her because his body is so, so tired.

“I can make you real strong again.”

She has a knife now. Maybe he’s gonna die.

“You want that, Sammy?”

He looks up at her. She’s got the knife pressed to her own arm, and before he can even try to properly understand what’s going on, she’s bleeding. Then she crouches down and holds out the wound.

“Suck,” she says, smirking.

Sam feels his insides rising—nausea, definitely, but also a strange heat. “So the vampire myths come from demons?” he says. Half kidding, half fishing for info.

Meg laughs. “Vampire myths come from vampires, kiddo. This is already in you.”

“I’m not drinking human blood,” he tells her. “Not ever.”

Her eyes flash black at that. “Do I look human to you?”

Demon blood. Sam has no clue about the implications of that. Would it turn him into a demon? Is that Azazel’s plan for him?

“No,” he says, and waits for the collar.

But it doesn’t come. Instead, Azazel joins them, lifting Sam out of the corner he’s fallen into between the treadmill and the wall, and depositing him in the middle of the room. Meg follows. Her arm trails blood.

Sam struggles up to his knees and waits. He’s failed the task, and defied Meg’s instructions, and this time he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

Azazel starts unbuckling his belt again. Sam swallows, but he tells himself he can deal; he did it once so he can do it again. But then he goes for the button on his jeans.

Oh God, Sam thinks. Oh God, no.

He doesn’t look as Azazel unzips. Just stares straight ahead. Maybe he’s a coward, but he thinks if he has to look, he’ll break down. His mind’s already spinning out of control and he struggles to suppress it.

“Listen up, buddy boy,” Azazel says. “Here’s how it is. You suck for Meg, get nice and strong. I’ll let you be as angry as you want. Even give you something nice after, if you want it. No dinky granola bars. I’m talking real food. Go upstairs to that bedroom, hmm? That cage couldn’t have been nice on your back.”

“What if I don’t?” says Sam. “If I won’t drink her blood.”

“Then you’ll suck for me instead,” says Azazel. “Which one, Sammy?”

Sam pushes to his feet and runs for the stairs.

The collar is going off again before he’s two steps up, but he’s acclimated a little now and he fights it hard. Gets all the way to the locked door and starts trying to kick it open. His first kick isn’t solid but he gets a feel for it with the second one and he’s not buckling, not yet—

The collar kicks up in intensity, and the cuffs around his wrists come into play again too. He totters back, leaning against the wall, then pushes on the door with his shoulder. It won’t give. One more kick, he thinks, and it would, but he feels like he’s gonna die if it gets any worse.

It gets worse, exploding like a supernova behind his eyes, and he falls down the stairs.

He lands wrong, catching an arm underneath him. He can’t think, can’t think. He’s stopped running but the collar and cuffs are still shooting him up with pain, and he lies on the floor and yells. The whole world hurts.

“Use your words, Sammy,” Meg shouts over him.

He tries. “Please,” he gasps out. “Please, I can’t—” And then he can’t bear it; he writhes, screaming.

“You scream so pretty,” she tells him, “but you gotta beg.”

“I’m sorry!” Sam shouts. He feels like he’s on fire, but stop-drop-roll isn’t going to work on this. His hands come up to claw at his neck.

“You gonna be good now?” Meg asks.

Sam tries to hold out. He does. But jolt after jolt of pain is ripping through him, getting faster and fiercer. He doesn’t want to die, oh God, he doesn’t want to die, and the answer bursts out of him.

“I’ll be good, I promise, I promise.”

The collar shuts off. The cuffs fizzle for a minute before fading out as well, and Sam lies on the floor gasping for breath. His whole body is shaking.

Far too soon, he hears Azazel. “All right, gotta hold up that promise. Blood or cock, pretty boy?”

It’s not the smart choice, maybe. Dad would tell him never, never to ingest a supernatural substance he wasn’t entirely familiar with. But Dad’s the one who sold him into this mess, and—ashamed of it as he is—Sam knows which one of the two he can stomach better.

“Blood,” he whispers.

“Attaboy,” says Azazel.

Meg reopens the cut on her arm, hissing as she does. Sam feels his heart pound, fear and shame and disgust roiling inside him, and a heavy thirst rising. He tells himself he just needs water.

He hesitates too long, so Meg grabs his head. Pinches his nose shut, presses her bleeding forearm against his mouth. Sam panics, then. He can’t do it. He can’t.

His heartbeats get louder, or maybe it’s Meg’s pulse, or maybe—

It’s footsteps on the stairs.

Sam gets dropped. Azazel and Meg start to turn, start to lift their hands. Then a voice rings out.

“In the name and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ I command you, be still!”

Then there’s Latin, words Sam wishes to God he had memorized, and there’s arms around him as the demons flee in smoke. It’s Dean. Dean and—

He turns in Dean’s arms.

“Dad,” he whispers. “Where’s Dad.”

He knows he shouldn’t be hoping, not now, but demons lie, they lie.

“We, uh. We split up,” says Dean. He fumbles for words. “He and Bobby, uh—got into some trouble. He didn’t make it out. But I’m here, Sammy, I came. I got Pastor Jim and I came right away.”

He reaches for Sam’s collar, fumbling with the lock on the back of it. Brings out his lockpicks, pops it free, runs a tentative finger along the burns underneath. “God, Sam.”

Sam feels tears bubbling up. “It hurts, Dean, it hurts so bad.”

Pastor Jim’s kneeling beside them, then, giving him a blanket and pulling out a med kit and checking the bodies of the possessed people. They’re both dead. Sam is a little glad he won’t have to look at them again, even though he knows they weren’t the ones who wanted to hurt him.

He still wonders about Dad. Still feels like the collar is going off around his heart when he thinks that Dad probably sold him. But Dad isn’t here. Dad won’t be here. But Dean’s here; Sam made it through till Dean came.

His questions can wait for another day.


End file.
